Cartoons on TV are one of the most popular ways to keep your child busy, and gadgets have long been an integral part of the developmental process. From a very early age, children play with tablets and smartphones, sometimes coping with devices better than adults. But isn't watching TV harmful to the psyche? How many hours a day can children watch TV? And how often should they be allowed to use gadgets? Medical consultant Olga Baburina spoke about this in an interview with MIR 24.
“Before the age of three, children are not recommended to watch TV, including cartoons. They do not really need them at this age. Up to two years old, it is better to remove children even from the room where the TV is on. This can affect overexcitation, psyche, speech development and contact with mom,”she said.
From three to ten years old, the expert recommends that children watch TV no more than an hour a day.
“But three and ten years are still different. In my opinion, up to five years - half an hour is enough. A TV is not the best option at all, a tablet and a gadget with developing toys are better. For example, there children can learn colors, learn letters,”added the doctor.
The expert recommends carefully filtering the information that children see on TV, it is the wrong content that can seriously harm the child's psyche.
“By the age of ten, a child can watch TV for several hours a day, but not everything. It shouldn't be that you just turned on the TV, on the screen of which there is news or a chronicle of incidents. In this case, the child will experience a powerful destruction of the psyche. The most correct thing is to watch and observe your child and draw conclusions. Because all children have a different psyche, some of them are very mobile. We follow the general rules, but no one canceled individuality,”she concluded.